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Posts Tagged ‘boic’

Vente-privee’s Plans For U.S. Domination Exciting Enough For Google TV Execs To Jump Ship

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from TechCrunch.

“Vente-privee, the French flash sales juggernaut, announced in May 2011 that it had teamed up with American Express to form a joint-venture for its U.S. operations (dubbed vente-privee USA). Earlier today, the company announced the latest members of its management team, which is headed by vente-privee USA CEO Mike Steib.

The hires that I thought were most notable were those of John Saroff and Jill Szuchmacher, who both previously served in leadership roles to grow the Google TV business.

Saroff has joined vente-privee USA as VP of Digital Factory and Sales Production – he will lead the creative development and production of each sale event including photo shoots, music, trailers and online boutiques for each partner. At Google, Saroff headed TV Ads and Strategic Partnerships.

Jill Szuchmacher will be leading business development for vente-privee USA as Vice President. She previously served as Director of Business Development at Google, most recently heading up commercialization for Google TV, leading engagements with partners such as Sony, Vizio, Netflix, Twitter, and Amazon.

According to their LinkedIn profiles, they left Google around the same time, which speaks volumes about Google TV, which has seen very slow uptake since its introduction earlier this year.

Other hires include Robin Domeniconi, who joins as VP of Marketing after servering as SVP and Chief Brand Officer at Elle Group, and Nicolas Genest, a former Microsoft engineer who is making the jump from vente-privee to vente-privee USA to serve as VP of Technology.

Other new members of the company’s leadership team are Laure de Metz (formerly VP of Licensing for Marc Jacobs International) and Tim Quinn (formerly VP Investments, Integration and Measurement at American Express).

No word about the launch date of vente-privee’s dedicated US site.”

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What bear market? Groupon pressing on with IPO plans

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Economy, internet, Investments, IPO news, Marketing, tagged , , , , , , on October 9, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from GigaOM.

“Reports of the death of Groupon’s IPOplans have apparently been greatly exaggerated. The online daily deals pioneer filed an updated version of its S-1 document with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, as part of its preparation for a planned initial public offering of its stock.

Since the company first filed its S-1 in June, Groupon has been roundly criticized for its seemingly shady accounting practices and that its early founders and investors have already cashed out billions of dollars worth of the company’s stock. CEO Andrew Mason was so irked by the negative press that he sent a long email to Groupon’s employees filled with talking points they could use to defend the company. Ironically, when that email was inevitably leaked to the press, it only attracted more criticism; the missive was seen as a violation of the SEC’s quiet period rules.

These issues coupled with the larger environment of economic unrest have fueled rumors that Groupon had put its stock market plans on ice. But Friday’s S-1 update — the third revision since June — shows that the company is still keen to go public. Despite Groupon’s swaggering reputation and Mason’s grumbling about haters, the company’s management is showing that underneath it all, it’s actually willing to make changes and respond to criticism. Specifically, the latest filing has a few notable tweaks: Groupon said it plans to scale back its marketing budget, reported that its revenue bookings were slightly higher in the second quarter of the year, and reprinted the full text of Mason’s leaked email.

More than anything, though, updating the S-1 shows that Groupon is still serious about making its stock market debut at some point soon. But ultimately, that will only happen if investors show that they have an appetite for the company’s shares.”

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Exploring the Value of Me

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, internet, tagged , , , on September 29, 2011| Leave a Comment »

By Tony Fish, founder AMF Ventures and member of Gerbsman Partners Board of Intellectual Capital.

One of the ‘events’ at Being Digital, on 11-12th October 2011 @ Innovation Warehouse, will be BeingMe, it is the PM session on the 12th.

BeingMe will explore the digital interactions that create personal data that is waiting to be exploited. Data is being created as you live your digital life from your click stream, key strokes, movement, location, search terms, your relationships and from your friends/associates actions towards you.  This data or signals can be run through an algorithm to deliver insights, personalization, intent and context which should improve your over-all digital experience, however, that same data also contains signals that can determine your reputation and your influence and help companies make a judgement if they want to do business with you and on what terms.

To help form a digital reputation or understand influence you need to determine someone’s Authority, Credibility, Expertise, Location, Proximity, Reach, Relevancy and Trust and these are the topics we will get deep and dirty within this session.  It is a paid for event and tickets start at £90 ex. VAT. More details are here  http://beingdigital.eu/ or Register Here and use mashupdigital to get a 20% discount.

BeingDigital has three other big themes (Social, Local and Open) at the summit giving you the flexibility to participate and attend one or all four themes. Meet early stage businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs building, creating and pushing the boundaries of digital business and the new generation of digital and social technology products.

I will be there and will be joined by Simon Rogers Guardian Datablog, Datastore and News editor for the Guardian, William Perrin Founder, Talk About Local, Steve Bridger Builder of Bridges, Elizabetta Camilleri CoFounder & CEO, Salesgossip.co.uk, Nick Halstead CEO & Founder, Mediasift, Chris Thorpe Founder/Technologist, Andrew Wanliss-Orleb Head of Product, Founder Echo Echo, Frida Sandin Merchandising Specialist, Avail Intelligence, Kalia Colbin Chief Marketing Officer, MiniMonos.com, Lawrence Buchanan Principal, Digital Transformation, Capgemini UK, Ishmayal Syed Technology Innovation Architect, Aviva, Azeem Azhar CEO, Peer Index

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HOWEVER – if your preference is to hear from the kids who want to present about their digital experience and views, and not the start-ups and experts, then why not come to  “Digital Footprint Summit Learnings and Insights from the Screenagers” on Thursday, November 3, 2011 from 10.30 AM to 4:00 PM (GMT).

The Digital Footprint Summit is all about social, personal and identifiable data and will focus on first hand perspectives from those in this generation. During the event we aim to explore what Screenagers really think about trading their personal information and how their attitudes will create a change for the ecosystem.

Traditional media suggests that this generation is “careless with privacy”. We will look beyond that view. Instead of patronising and protecting, we will seek to understand where they see as engagement, relationship and conversation.

The keynotes and debate will focus on:
If the Facebook generation’s notion of privacy becomes the norm, what does it mean for services?
Does sharing personal data really allow companies to serve customers better?
What the Screenages see as visionary based on their current experience and what could happen if their data was available ?
What will they trade and what will they see as valuable?
How to implement visualisation techniques to make the use of your data acceptable.
User interface, boundaries and what is acceptable for privacy.
By speaking to and with the generation who are living it, this conference hopes to tease out some assumptions, views and insights and in doing so, provide a more balanced viewpoint that will help shape innovative, research, development and strategy.

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1st investments for ex-Facebook exec’s venture fund

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, Business models, Community, Economy, FaceBook, Intellectual capital, Investments, Market research, Social Networks, Strategy, Venture Capital, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 28, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Article from SF Gate.

“Chamath Palihapitiya, a former executive at Facebook Inc., made the first two investments for his new venture fund, buying stakes in business-software maker Yammer Inc. and private-stock exchange SecondMarket Inc.

Palihapitiya’s fund, called the Social+Capital Partnership, led a $17 million investment in Yammer, a San Francisco company that makes social-networking programs for businesses.

The fund, which announced both deals separately Tuesday, bought its SecondMarket stake from existing investors. SecondMarket lets investors trade shares of closely held companies before they hold an initial public offering.

After a four-year career at Facebook, where he worked on mobile products and expanded the company internationally, Palihapitiya left this year to form Social+Capital.

The Palo Alto fund is raising about $300 million, with an eye to investing in Internet technology, health care, education and financial services. Before joining Facebook, Palihapitiya spent a year at venture-capital firm Mayfield Fund.

“The things I like tend to have very disruptive elements to an existing established infrastructure,” Palihapitiya, 35, said.

“SecondMarket disrupts the IPO process by giving you completely different alternatives. Yammer is highly disruptive to established enterprise software companies.”

With Tuesday’s investment, Yammer has now raised $57 million. The company, started by PayPal Inc. co-founder David Sacks, provides software to more than 100,000 businesses in 160 countries, serving clients such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Ford Motor Co. Existing investors include Charles River Ventures, Emergence Capital and U.S. Venture Partners.

“Social networking is destined to have as significant an impact on the enterprise as it has already had in our personal lives,” Palihapitiya said in a statement.

The SecondMarket deal, meanwhile, involving buying stock from employees and early investors, Chief Executive Officer Barry Silbert said in a blog posting.

Shareholders of the New York company sold about $13 million of stock at a valuation of about $160 million, in what the company expects to be an “annual liquidity event,” Silbert said.

SecondMarket helps investors in privately held companies buy and sell their stock. The company has handled transactions totaling almost $1 billion, Silbert said Tuesday. Shareholders of Facebook, Twitter Inc. and LinkedIn Corp. have sold stock on the exchange.

Palihapitiya was joined by Russian billionaire Yuri Milner and actor Ashton Kutcher in buying the SecondMarket shares.”

Read more here.

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With Great Startups It’s All About The Execution

Posted in Board Of Intellectual Capital, tagged , , , on September 27, 2011| Leave a Comment »

by Martin Zwilling, Forbes Contributing Editor

A startup begins with a great idea, but all too often, that’s where it ends. Ideas have to be implemented well to get the desired results. Good implementation requires a plan, and a good plan and good operational decisions come from good people. That’s why investors invest in entrepreneurs, rather than ideas.

People and operational excellence have to converge in every business, large or small. Microsoft found this out last year when their market capitalization, once at $560 billion in the year 2000, had fallen to $219 billion, allowing them to be passed by Apple at $222 billion, who grew from $15.6 billion during the same period. Both had access to the same technology, people, and market.

So what could have happened here? I found a good summary of the relevant keys to business operational excellence in a new book by Faisal Hoque, called “The Power of Convergence.” His focus is on repeatable practices to maximize business opportunities in large companies, but I’m convinced that these apply equally well to startups:

  • Clearly define your value chain. Your value chain consists of customers, partners, vendors, internal systems, and your own team. Make sure you understand this chain, as well as market dynamics, to drive operational innovations and every decision. Apple has been able to innovate at an amazing pace to define and meet new market opportunities.
  • Visualize abnormal or suboptimal performance. Recognizing and understanding deviations enables a startup or any business to take corrective action quickly. This requires executives and a team that understands the parameters, and is focused on customers, quality, and continuous improvement.
  • Facilitate the power of your team. Startups need to empower their people to take action in the absence of orders. That doesn’t mean abdication in setting corporate policies, which provide parameters to ensure that individuals have to ability to act collectively in the company’s best interest. Steve Jobs has a committed team.
  • Communicate effectively with the team and customers. Communication is a challenge in any organization, but it’s a particular challenge when you’re working in a startup, where customers, products, processes, and the team are new. Most founders forget that communication becomes exponentially more difficult as the business grows.
  • Measure value flow and performance. Measuring performance may seem self-evident, but many entrepreneurs mistake this task as a point-in-time or a one-time event. In operationally excellent startups, performance measurement is an ongoing effort throughout the process chain, not just at the outcome.
  • Define response mechanisms. Anticipating and planning for worst-case scenarios, and having a Plan-B, will enable the quick-response and pivots required to put a startup back on track. Metrics are required for ensuring the return to a known good baseline.
  • Maximize technology architecture and standards. Continuous innovation to maintain your competitive advantage does not mean that you can ignore current architectures and standards. These must always be leveraged produce optimal intended product outcomes.

What every business needs is a convergence of business and technology elements to optimize return and competitive positioning. All too often, entrepreneurs posit a new technology or idea, without understanding that a successful business is a never-ending process of adapting and improving all the elements in a business – especially business model, processes, and people, as well as technology.

Apple, with Steve Jobs, has demonstrated a rare convergence of technology, market understanding, business process, and people. Are you focused on all the right execution principles in your startup to do the same?

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